Chaos Theory
by trufflemores
Summary: Barry owns up to the psychological consequences of locking metahumans up.


It was never meant to be permanent.

Looking around the empty cells, Barry feels a hollowness in his chest. They had the best intentions. The plan was to capture destructive meta-humans, rehabilitate them, and release them back into the world.

Except then the _body count_ started mounting.

First there was Clyde Mardon. Barry steps in front of an empty cell, staring at its occupant. He can almost hear the drawl to his tone: _Locked me up, huh? Think these four walls will stop me?_

Being six feet under did that.

Moving along, he pauses in front of a second cell. Danton Black gazes back at him, unsmiling, trembling hands pressed to the glass. There's only one of him, but he strikes an alarming figure. Especially when he begins to pound the glass, shouting, _Let me go. Let me go. Let me die_.

Barry shivers, stepping away from the shadows, and stares at Kyle Nimbus' cell. He was the first meta-human they ever brought down here. How long has he lived in this cell? Two months? Three? It startles Barry to think how much time has passed since they started tracking meta-humans. Worse, it puts a lump in his throat, his gazed fixed on the empty glass cage. Nimbus doesn't deserve his sympathy: his crimes earn him a place in a penitentiary. But this is worse than prison; this is solitary confinement.

For months.

 _How long has it been?_

Barry doesn't move on until he's determined that it's been exactly nineteen weeks since they put Nimbus away. Almost five months.

He tries to picture himself in a cage that long. With no hope for freedom. Empty promises of _conversion_. That if he humbles himself to his captors, they'll let him go.

In their eyes, he deserves to be there, and Barry might try to be persuasive, but how can he be when they won't even look at him? When all they see is a murderer on death row?

 _Kill me_ , Nimbus seems to growl from the shadows, _or let me go. Purgatory is for the dead_.

What was the name of Oliver's island? Lian Yu?

 _It means purgatory_.

Barry reaches out, like he can open the door and release Nimbus again, give him a chance, but Nimbus isn't there, and his hand shies away from the glass.

Moving on, he walks down the line. Standing between the fourth and fifth cells, he feels a painful smile twitch at the corners of his lips. They never caught Leonard Snart or Mick Rory. Instead they delivered them to justice at the hands of CCPD and subsequently watched them make their escape. They should have put them in these cells. But they were too noble to put a non-meta human in a meta-human hell.

Wrapping his arms around his chest compulsively, he can feel the freeze burn across the lower side of his chest. It's fully healed – or so Caitlin says – but he can still feel a tingling sensation at times, a numbness. A reminder that he isn't always strong enough or fast enough. Not fast enough to save that security guard, either.

God, he should blame Snart, but he _can't_. When he has an opportunity to save someone and he _doesn't_ , it's his fault. He was their last chance. He was the one who ultimately stood between life and death and let them _die_.

That wasn't the first person to die under his watch – the man in the car crash after Clyde Mardon conjured a fog was the first – but it haunted him.

 _Not fast enough, Flash_ , Snart says, looking at him from behind the glass. Vanishing.

His throat tightens as he walks past a void space between cells, aware that there should be a woman beside him. A woman who didn't deserve to die for wanting to put an end to her torturer's life. A woman who trusted him for one second and paid with her life for it, laying down her weapon long enough for General Eiling to put out a killing shot. Bette Sans Souci never spent time in any of these cells, nor would she have. She didn't want to hurt anyone. She could have helped them. Barry _knows_ intuitively that the odds were a thousand to one that they would ever uncover a usefulness for turning objects into explosives, but that doesn't mean she deserved to rot in a cell or die for the crime of being targeted when the particle accelerator blew up.

Cell number six makes the lump harden in his throat until he can barely breathe around it. Tony Woodward gazes back at him, arms folded, muscles pronounced, but there's a peaceable air about him. When he says, _I died for you_ , there's no resentment. _You put me in here and I died for you_.

He'd put up a fight, beaten Barry down until _everything_ hurt, but when they locked him up, he didn't lose his humanity.

 _Because you gave him a chance_ , Barry thinks.

He talked to Tony that night – had to get something off his chest. He talked to him about things like _redemption_ , holding out a laurel leaf, like a captor promising freedom.

 _You made my life a living hell, Tony. I don't want to make yours one, too_.

Barry exhales slowly, feeling cold tears on his face.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. It's so quiet Tony would never hear him, but the phantom smiles back, almost benignly.

Says simply, _I know_.

Then it, too, is gone.

He walks on.

His footsteps are quiet enough that he makes no noise, but he knows he throws off invisible waves of energy, projecting heat. Calmness. Rationality. There's _lightning_ under his skin. A lightning he doesn't know how he would live without. The same lightning Farooq stole from him when he came too close to a desperate man.

 _I have – to feed_.

Barry didn't see the warning signs soon enough, approaching him like he would any other meta-human, steadily, unhesitatingly, instead of an animal blinded by pain and hunger. A healthy amount of caution was a good thing: a lack thereof, potentially dire. Barry didn't pay for his hubris enough that night, even though Farooq Gibran gave him ample grievance, shocking him not once but four times. Caitlin rounded off the set, nailing him a fifth time at his _insistence_ to try and reboot his powers.

It was all a lesson in misdirection: Farooq hadn't taken his powers from him. He'd drained Barry to a point where he couldn't _feel_ the lightning, but it was there. Reachable. When Farooq tried to kill Dr. Wells, Barry felt something fracture. Some _hesitation_ gave way. And then the lightning broke free.

He didn't mean to kill him.

In the center of the cell, Farooq looks back at him with those black-smothered, anguished eyes, asking in a barely audible whisper, _Why did you kill me?_

To that, Barry has no answer.

All he can say is, "I'm sorry."

He can feel that presence at his back, the lightning under his skin _remembering_ what happened to him.

When he steps in front of the eighth cell, he can vividly remember _that_ experience, too. One moment he had Roy Bivolo, _it's over_ already on his lips—and then Bivolo's eyes flash red and a monster – Barry tries to describe it, to _contain_ it, but all he can see is red – takes him by the throat and pins him to a wall. He can feel the weight of it, overwhelming, suffocating, as it snarls in his face, _Kill, kill, kill, KILL_.

Looking at the cell, he sees that monster. But he also sees Bivolo, strangely apart from his powers, like the monster and he aren't really the same creature. Like maybe Barry's been looking at him wrong the entire time.

When he looks at the monster, he's glad it's in a cell, but when he looks at Bivolo, he feels a strange sense of unease. Like he doesn't deserve it.

 _He hurt people_ , Barry reminds himself.

But he can't quite shake the feeling that maybe – maybe – like Farooq, he never meant to.

Backing away from the monster is easy; walking away from the cell is harder, knowing that it used to hold a man. A human. Someone who didn't deserve to spend twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week in a cage, perfectly isolated.

There's another gap between cells.

Barry's mother screams, _Henry! Henry_.

Barry's father pushes him back, shouting, _Run, Barry, run!_

And then something grabs him, depositing him on the streets twenty blocks away from his house.

He doesn't even stop, walking past the cell, past _that night_ , because it's not over between the Reverse Flash and him.

At tenth cell, he pauses. Contemplating the idea that if he doesn't take down the Reverse Flash, this could be his future. Behind a glass wall, imprisoned for the rest of his life.

With a shiver, he Flashes to the upper level, putting distance between himself and the lowest floor. He's level with the entrance, and he feels steadier being above that cell, that future that he refuses to let happen.

Picking his way down the bridge methodically, he finds himself staring at the smiling face of Hartley Rathaway.

 _Hello, Barry Allen_.

Barry reflexively shields his face, even though Hartley's a ghost, not even _there_ , and he doesn't really know who Barry is.

 _How long were you going to keep me waiting?_ Hartley asks with an almost amused smile.

 _Forever_ , Barry thinks, feeling shame swelling in his throat. It's the wounded animal in him speaking. The one that felt its _bones_ shake until fracture-fracture-fracture- _fracture_ , _anything_ put under enough pressure _will break_ , even atoms, and the vibrations bring him to his knees, bring him earthward, blinds him, deafens him, makes his organs _shear apart_.

It lasts seventy-five seconds.

But Barry would subject himself to almost any torture over sonic dismemberment.

So he wasn't thinking magnanimously when he put Hartley here.

Looking into Hartley's eyes, he wants to say, "Go to hell."

Instead, he turns and walks silently away from the empty cell, vowing to bring Hartley to _justice_.

Not this. This isn't right.

But he will get his comeuppance.

It's almost laughable that the twelfth cell belongs to a meta-human Cisco named _Peek-a-Boo_ , but there's little funny about Shawna Baez's demeanor or the way she glares at him. There's a tiger-like intensity to her focus, as if she can phase through the glass wall. Cisco promises Barry it's impossible, but some days he isn't so sure.

Picturing himself in her shoes, he can't entirely blame her. To be stuck in a _box_ when everything in your DNA screams freedom would be intolerable. He'd do anything to get out. _Anything_.

Shawna is still staring silently at his back, waiting, when he walks away from her empty cell.

Thirteen is an interesting number: historically, it's a bad omen. Which, Barry thinks, is fitting, given Ronnie's ill-fated fortunes. When they first met Firestorm, it seemed all too appropriate to put him in a cell. He hurt people. He wasn't himself. He posed a danger to their society.

But he was also _Ronnie_ , and they fought for him. Advocated to save him when rationality insisted they let him go or, in its darkest moments, put him down.

They brought Ronnie back. Barry tries to feel the victory for what it is, but he can't shake the chilling notion that if they _hadn't_ been able to pull him back from that precipice, he would be in this cell. Looking outward, trapped once more inside the particle accelerator.

 _It didn't happen_ , Barry reminds himself firmly, walking away.

And they got Dr. Martin Stein back, too. A victory for everyone. One more empty cell.

Except separating Firestorm had consequences – consequences that drew attention from the wrong sort of people. From Bette's _murderer_. He had his people design a device specifically to incapacitate Barry, and it worked. He would have become the next pet project on Eiling's nefarious list if it hadn't been for Ronnie's response. Ronnie could have – should have – bolted, cut their losses, but instead he lunged for Barry, throwing him in the back of the open truck Cisco and Caitlin had, and flung himself behind them as they skidded away.

He was the last one to reach safety. Had Eiling had a little more time, he would have been the first one grabbed.

He put himself in harm's way to save Barry's life.

Barry would never, ever forget that.

Staring at the blank cell, at Eiling's cool, unfolding countenance, he thinks, _You deserve to be here._

 _For what you did to Bette Sans Souci._

 _For what you did to Professor Stein._

 _For what you did to Ronnie._

 _For what you did to_ me.

But he isn't there. No, he's locked up in Iron Heights, because like Cold, he's not their guy. He's just an ordinary human. "Powerless."

With a disgusted scoff, Barry walks on.

The air in the room almost visibly cools as he moves down the line. Fifteen and sixteen.

Mark Mardon.

He can feel that other Flash at his shoulder. Barry doesn't turn to look at him, knowing that he isn't really there. Messing with time has consequences – serious consequences. Fatal consequences. Except nothing – _nothing_ – could be worse than what would happen to Central City if that tidal wave hit.

So Barry took that other Flash's life. The euphemistic _erased his timeline_ is only a comforting lie.

Time travel has consequences. He was alive – but then he died, his timeline _ended_ , and he found a new life in _this one_.

The fifteenth cell is a moratorium, with that other Flash looking out at him, features blurred, barely there. _Iris loves me_ , he seems to say. _Everything's gonna be okay. I can stop this_.

That other Flash doesn't know Cisco is already dead. He also doesn't know that there's no way Barry can stop the tidal wave. The strain, the approaching speed, and the sheer volume of water and energy surging towards him is too great. Wind is not enough. Everyone he knows and loves – including Joe, trapped on a barge, badly injured – is about to die.

Sheer force of will gives them a second chance. And it's also the reason Mark Mardon occupies the sixteenth cell. There's a distinct sense of _imminence_ about him, like an oncoming storm.

 _This isn't over_ , he promises.

Barry turns his back on him, ignoring the powerful ache in his chest. The stern reminder that he doesn't control the game accompanies him to the next cell.

He doesn't linger long on the Tricksters. There's something incredibly disconcerting about them, reminding him how far out of his depth he really is. Mentally, he isn't prepared for their degree of insanity. They need help he can't give them; and he doesn't try. Sometimes, he has to be selfish enough to recognize that he's out of his league.

 _But not so selfish that I should put them in a cell forever_.

Brie Larvan isn't a meta-human, either, but she still has a cell here. She's earned it: stopping his heart and killing two people with her mechanical bees definitely qualifies as borderline meta-human. She tried to kill Dr. Christina McGee, too, before Atom rescued her and Felicity disabled the bees remotely.

Except she isn't here: she's locked away elsewhere. Barry feels ashamed at the relief he feels. They choose this lifestyle; they have to live with the consequences. But it's easier to just shut the door and forget these cells exist.

It's easy to put them out of sight and out of mind.

Hannibal Bates was always good at staying out of sight – assuming other people's identities to conceal his own and hide his crimes. He was so good at staying out of sight that Dr. Wells _used him_ , shamelessly, as a pawn in his game. Barry doesn't know what Bates was promised in exchange for compliance: looking into the empty cell, he thinks _I will let you go_ would be sufficient.

And he stuck to his promise. Bates was let go.

He was freed.

Feeling bile in the back of his throat, Barry forces himself to look at the last two cells in the line.

Twenty and twenty-one.

 _Deathbolt_ and Grodd.

It's strangely fitting that the last two are so alien to him. He barely even knew Jake Simmons before Snart killed him; Grodd, even less so.

The whole process feels almost mundane, almost acceptable, when you don't know who's behind the glass. When they're just another number.

His chest still hurts – Deathbolt and Mark Mardon weren't holding any punches when they nailed him during their escape – but he lingers in front of those cells, contemplating the cool metal walls around him. Aware that had he _not_ taken the risks to move them, the survivors – Mark Mardon, Shawna Baez, Kyle Nimbus, and Roy Bivolo – would be among the dead.

They don't deserve to hurt people.

But they don't deserve to die here, either.

He sits in front of the twenty-second cell, wondering who's next.

Hours later – muscles sore and cramped from the stillness – Caitlin puts a hand on his shoulder. When he doesn't move, she says, "Bar."

He pulls himself to his feet, still staring ahead. Seeing the hint of his own reflection in the glass.

"What are you doing here?" she asks quietly.

It takes a moment for him to find his voice. "Remembering," he says at last. "So I don't make the same mistakes."

He isn't talking about the fights. Caitlin seems to sense it.

"We'll get them back," Caitlin promises him.

Barry closes his eyes, thinking, _And then what do we do?_

She doesn't read his mind, but it's close: "We'll help them. Like we were supposed to." Squeezing his hand lightly, she says, "Come on."

When he doesn't move, she gently pulls until he follows, walking away from the prison, from purgatory, a space between.

And he resolves to do _better_.

To be more decisive.

One way or another.

. o .

Cell number twenty-fourth gets filled eight months later.

Their first Earth-2 occupant.

Sand Demon.

He's the only other person in the room.

Barry steps up to the glass and says slowly, distinctly, "This cell is impenetrable. No speedsters can get in." Then, when William Baker continues to stare, uncomprehending, he adds, "That means _Zoom_ can't hurt you." Drawing in a deep breath, he shifts on his feet, trying to find the best way to phrase what needs to be said. "The more I know about him," he says, "the more likely it is that we can free you on amenable terms."

"Is that what you're calling them, now? 'Amenable terms'?"

"I don't want to be your enemy," Barry says softly. "And I don't think I have to be, either. But I can't let you hurt other people."

Baker scoffs, folding his arms. "I don't want to hurt _other people_ ," he says, almost sneering. "Just you. You're the only one Zoom is interested in."

"Like I said," Barry reiterates patiently, "this cell is impenetrable. No speedsters can get in. Whatever you say? Can't be used against you. _Zoom_ can't touch you."

Baker stares at him for a while, sizing him up. "What do you want?"

"For us to work on the same team," Barry says. "To stop Zoom."

"Zoom can't be stopped."

" _Everything_ can be stopped. Even Zoom."

Baker laughs; it isn't amused. "You don't know anything about him, do you?"

Barry's lips twitch in a smile. "I know he's after me. And that he's a speedster from your world."

"He's not a speedster. He's a god," Baker says. Then, seeming to falter in his own conviction, he adds, "Keep me or kill me, it makes no difference. Zoom will find me. And unless I bring you to him, he _will_ kill me."

"And, presumably, me," Barry adds.

Baker tips his head in acknowledgment. "I can live with that."

"That's the problem," Barry says, folding his arms, rocking lightly on his feet, "I can't. And I refuse to live in a world where Zoom calls all the shots. _Someone_ has to stop him." Meeting Baker's eyes, he says seriously, "Work with us and we can let you go."

Baker considers it for a long moment, staring straight at him.

Then he turns, putting his back to Barry, and says in a neutral tone, "I'll _consider_ it."

Deciding it's the best he can hope for, Barry is about to shut the door, send the cell back to its holding area, when it occurs to him.

"This is a cell," he says, "but it doesn't have to be a prison. My offer will remain as long as you are here. Work with us, and _we can let you go_."

When Baker doesn't reply, Barry quietly hits the send-back-to-holding button, watching the door shut and the pod disappear.

It's not ideal. It may _never_ be ideal.

But if there's one thing Oliver Queen taught him, it's that the world isn't black and white, divided into heroes and villains.

There are nuances. There are points of interests, turning points, things he can do to _change_ the future. Things he can do that won't right his wrongs but _will_ change the lives of other people in good ways.

You can't erase your past.

But you can change the future.

As he walks away, Barry resolves to uphold that – the promises he once made, the life he must now lead. The honor he will not betray.


End file.
